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Meet The Bose Hearing Aid

Written by Geoffrey Cooling

Updated March 15, 2019Published March 15, 2019

Hearing Tracker broke a story on the new Bose hearing aids a couple of days ago, they look remarkably similar to their Hearphones. It looks like the new hearing aid will be similar to the Wear and Hear devices we have discussed already. The Bose hearing aid device represents the first of a completely new category of hearing aids. According to the FDA, the Bose self-fitting hearing aid is intended to amplify sound for individuals 18 years of age or older with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment. The device will be adjusted by the user to meet the user’s hearing needs. The devices are intended for direct-to-consumer sale and no pre-programming or hearing test is necessary. What struck me was the similarity in design and concept to the BeHear devices I reviewed in the article "My Latest Experiences With The BeHear Now from Wear&Hear." Let's talk about the Bose Hearing Aids.

Typical Bluetooth Headphones

Like the BeHear Now (which you can see here) , the new Bose Hearing Aid looks like any typical Bluetooth headset in design. In fact, it looks exactly like the popular Bose Hearphones with a flexible neckband which houses all of the electronics and cables for the right and left earbuds.

The Bose Hearing Aid has two microphones in each earbud that can be used in omnidirectional or directional modes to help with speech in noise. They say that they offer active noise reduction using “feedback and feedforward control loops” to give better speech understanding in noise. The devices will also offer typical Bluetooth audio streaming from smartphones for both music and phone calls.

Self-fitting with a smartphone app

Exactly like the BeHear Now and the IQBuds Boost from NuHeara, the Bose Hearing aids will be self-programmed through a smartphone app which will be available for both iPhones and Android smartphones. As with the BeHear Now, the app can be used to change the settings on the devices but there is also a set of buttons that can also be used to adjust both the "World Volume" and the directional mode.

Hearing Aid Features

The Bose Hearing Aid boasts a set of features that you would typically expect from a hearing aid. The signal processing includes 12-channel wide dynamic range compression amplification. The noise reduction feature is continuously active and they say it reduces environmental noise and the perception of the user’s own voice.

Additional features reported include:

Feedback cancellation

Steady-state noise reduction

Directionality (three modes controllable by the user)

Impulse noise control

Left/Right balance

Bluetooth-compliant 2.4 GHz wireless radio for streaming audio, telephony, and control

Again, the features list is not unlike that of either the BeHear Now or the IQBuds Boost. The only real question is, when will the Bose devices be ready? The other question for me is when will the BeHear Now and IQBuds Boost be added to this category? Because looking at the design and the clinical studies that support this new category of devices, it seems to me that both the BeHear Now and the IQBuds Boost fit the brief.

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Geoffrey Cooling

Co Foundergeoff@audiologyengine.comGeoffrey (Geoff, anything else makes him nervous) Cooling is an Irish hearing aid blogger and has been involved with the hearing aid industry for over ten years. He has worked in private practice dispensing hearing aids and as a manufacturer's rep. He has written two books and they are both available on Amazon. He loves technology, passing on knowledge and is legendary for many other things, primarily the amount he curses, his dry and mischievous sense of humour and his complete intolerance of people who are full of themselves. Please feel free to connect with him

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Hearing Aid Know is written by Steve Claridge and Geoffrey Cooling. Steve has been wearing hearing aids
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